Being normal makes heroes super

BY DIANE WERTS | Newsday Staff Writer

September 25, 2006

Hayden Panettiere plays a cheerleader in the NBC drama "Heroes" (NBC Photo)

What's super about this series isn't the powers that turn everyday people into the title wonders.

"Heroes" employs those superpowers to strip away facades, not create them. At its heart, this unique NBC drama is a panorama of ordinary characters so relatable, you ache every time one is called upon to fly, walk through fire, hear people's thoughts or bend the time-space continuum.

Eek, sorry to use such a geeky term. "Heroes" is actually centered in how the heart is affected when you're set apart from your peers by an unsolicited, uncontrollable ability that simply materializes. You don't just put on tights and go save the planet. You question, you deny, you exult, you flee, you fear being a "freak or guinea pig." You can always appear on "Maury," but "Heroes" is a show for people smarter than that - for people who live in, ironically, the real world.

A soul-deep sense of humanity grounds "Heroes" everywhere from west Texas football practice to the Japanese subway, as series creator Tim Kring ("Crossing Jordan") introduces a cross-section of powered people whose lives start to intersect in ways that may be unlikely, yet still make eons more sense than ABC's one-city "Six Degrees" saga. A zealous young professor from India (Sendhil Ramamurthy) heads to New York seeking random citizens he believes carry "the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung." Meanwhile, the loose-ends younger brother (Milo Ventimiglia) of an ambitious politician (Adrian Pasdar) can suddenly hover above the ground. A downtown artist (Santiago Cabrera) with a drug problem finds himself painting the future. An effusive Tokyo comics fan (Masi Oka) concentrates hard enough to transport himself to Times Square in what seems like an instant.

Or is it? By next week's episode, we learn that leaps in time can enable our "heroes" to avert disaster. Or create it. The Japanese guy even discovers a sort of map to what he considers his heroic destiny. (His name, after all, is Hiro.) But who created it and got it into his hands? Mysterious names are dropped, and shadowy figures cross characters' paths. A Las Vegas dancer and single mom (Ali Larter) gets creepy unseen guidance that seems designed to get her out of a murderous situation, or possibly sink her deeper into it.

The key to what makes "Heroes" click can be found in the youngest of its equally treated ensemble, a blond Texas cheerleader (Hayden Panettiere), who, on many shows, would be the blithery teen bimbo. Here, Kring treats her as perhaps the most thoughtful of the whole as-yet-unconnected group, testing her indestructibility, unsure whether to revel in or resent it. She's got not only a brain but a clever sensibility, as do all the characters, who are more fully formed than you'd expect in such a hopscotching narrative.

Next week's episode introduces a voice-hearing cop (Greg Grunberg) on the other side of the continent, while raising the stakes to nuclear immediacy. Just when you figure that's obviously the topper, the third episode concludes with the most walloping "To be continued" you're likely to see (or be sickened by, for those with weak stomachs).

Yes, "Heroes" can go to extremes, indulging more than most mainstream dramas in graphic special effects and such fantasy trappings as a related online comic book (9thwonders .com). But Kring, who can't even read comics because of a dyslexic disorder (his eyes can't process the quote balloons), isn't really a sci-fi/genre guy. He created "Crossing Jordan" after working on "Providence." His credits further back include "Strange World" and the film "Teen Wolf Too," but also "Chicago Hope." He's more into people than pyrotechnics. Like his heroes, he sees a deeper meaning in their superpowers. And that makes his show heroic indeed.

Sci Fi Channel airs "Heroes" episode encores Fridays at 7 p.m.

HEROES. Ordinary people discover extraordinary abilities and, sometimes, each other. Series premieres tonight at 9 on NBC/4.